The IEEE 802.16e standard describes Multicast and Broadcast Services (MBS), which is a downlink only offering that uses common multicast connection identifiers (MCIDs) to provide an efficient method of simultaneously transmitting data to a group of users. Thus, MBS saves resources by allocating the same radio waveform to all users registered to the same service instead of allocating as many radio waveforms as there are users. Moreover, in a multi-base station (multi-BS) MBS system, mobile stations (MSs) registered to an MBS service can receive MBS information from any base station (BS) in a particular MBS_ZONE without being registered with a specific BS in that zone.
Although the IEEE 802.16m standard for E-MBS consists of MAC and PHY protocols defining interactions between the MSs and the BSs, no detailed description has been provided on how to carry out a handover among different multicast and broadcast zones in MBS. Similarly, no detailed description has been provided on how to carry out a handover among different multicast and broadcast zones in other systems such as Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), or Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB).
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a system and method for handling a handover among different multicast and broadcast zones.